


here in search of your glory

by a_mind_at_work (Madame_Marauder)



Series: this whole damn city [5]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Brother and sister bond over discovering government secrets, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 16:15:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13999863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madame_Marauder/pseuds/a_mind_at_work
Summary: Philip and his sister haven't really been allowed to be involved that deeply in the resistance.After this, they sure as hell will be.





	here in search of your glory

   “You fucking coming or what, Philip?” the girl calls down. She's perched rather precariously on top of the Wall, ancient mortar flaking off the brickwork as she shifts her foot, falling and settling in the dirt and dust that lines the abandoned alley.

    Pip glares, but braces his foot against the crate she'd had him drag over here. “You're nuts, Angie. Can you even get anywhere from there?”

    His sister smirks, and waves him up. “Yeah, there's a gap big enough for us to fit through. We can step down to that cabinet, and there's a shelf we can get on from the ground. It's all good.”

    “Remind me again why I agreed to this?” he asks as he watches her worm into the barricaded area. She slips through without too much of an issue, and Pip sighs as he hauls himself up and through the gap. Angie was right about the furniture, at least, and she slides off the shelf as he finds his footing on the cabinet.

    “You have a sense of adventure, unlike James or Maria,” the newly-sixteen-year-old announces. “Also, you don't have a real job, and Nick said you should make sure that I don't do anything dumb and get myself hurt.”

    She's got him there.

    “Not the point,” he says anyway, and brushes off the thick layer of dust that's clinging to him. Angie has wandered over to the sets of shelves, and her shoes leave distinct prints in the heavy dust with each step. She gently pulls one of the filthy containers from its resting place, and brushes off the cover.

     “Pip, look at this thing,” his sister breathes, opening the front of the oddly hinged container to reveal a tiny, flimsy screen.  _ Atlas of the World _ , it declared, unmoving, but the next unprobably thin screen has different text, and the one after that is adorned with vibrant pictures. “What the hell is this?”

     He steps forward and brushes his hand over its surface. “I think… I mean, it looks like a holobook, yeah? But it's not a holo. So it's probably what they used before holos.”

     Angie nods, and closes it gently. “Outdated, but cool, I guess. But if it's just a bunch of old stuff, then why's it behind the Wall?

     Pip shrugs, and stares around the room. It's larger than he had originally realized, faded posters and pictures on the walls, a fallen stand for a holocamera laid across the floor, something rust-red staining the floor near it.

     All at once, he connects the color and the streaks and feels vaguely ill. Whatever got this particular place sealed off, it wasn't done peacefully. And he suddenly has a fairly decent idea of what that might have been.

     “Pip,” Angie calls shakily, and he follows her voice to another room, through a once-grand hallway and two doors down. She's leaning in a doorway, the only open one, her hand trembling as she stares at something, and the tremors only increase as she points up to the clear-fronted cabinets around the room. He blinks, but she's not lost her mind, and his eyes aren't lying to him.

      There are bottles tipped over, their contents long since dried, and boxes now yellowed and crumbling with age, all sitting above or below once-neat labels.  _ Antibiotics _ , declares one of the few peeling sections still legible.  _ Asthma. Cough Suppressants. Influenza. _

__ The last is what makes Pip stagger and lean into the wall, staring at the broken bottles and hopelessly confused pills scattered amongst each other on the floor. Oh, he only barely remembers the woman, but he'd heard many a story about his brother's mother from Alex before the older boy had left those five years ago. And he knows how she died; just the same way his blood-parents did, in the flu epidemic that had nearly killed Alex and devastated a good share of Purple.

     And the medicine no-one could afford had been right here, wasted and destroyed, sealed away for seemingly no reason at all.

     “Oh,” he says quietly, because that's really all he can say.

     Angie swipes a hand over her eyes, and he wraps an arm around her shoulders. “Nobody from Purple would do this. There has to be an explanation for this, Pip.”

     “Has to be a damn spectacular one,” he agrees, and they're frozen there in silence for god only knows how long before Angie is the one to break away from the spell of lives that could have been, could have been saved.

     She pulls him away, too, and down the dust-covered hall. Half of the lights in here are dead, and it's by the light of his holoscreen flashlight that they're finding their way around, that they make their way back to the room they'd came through in. Angie slumps against the wall, and Pip smiles weakly. It's more of a grimace than anything else.

     “We've gotta explore the rest of this place,” she announces. “Nobody else has been through here, and god only knows what might have been abandoned.”

     He nods, realize as he might that they're not going to find the miracle she's hoping for. “Not today. In the morning, sure.” 

     Angie nods back at him, and follows as he pushes himself up on the shelf.

 

     They make their excuses to James and slip back behind the Wall in the morning.

     Most of the doors along the main hallway are locked, or simply stuck with time. But the set at the end of the hall open at a curious touch, and Angie grins. Pip rolls his eyes, but follows her in. Lights go up as they step inside the room, panels and screens flaring to life, and there's the rasp of moving parts before some side room fills with a blinding light that has them both recoiling and blinking spots out of their vision. 

     Pip squints cautiously, a hand on Angie’s wrist. “What the fuck?”

     “Why the fuck is it so bright?” she demands, grimacing over at the ridiculously strong light. “I feel like I'm going to go blind.”

     He shakes his head, but she storms over to see what the hell it is. And then she freezes in place, jaw dropped, slowly reaching out to touch the empty doorway. Her hand connects, and Pip belatedly realizes that it's glass. That it's a window.

     “Philip,” his sister says softly, eyes suddenly wide with shock and just a little fear, “Philip, that's not part of the City.”

     Two steps, and he's at her side, staring out at the impossible view in front of them. Two steps, and the entire world is shaken yet again. Two steps, and he stares up.

     It's so huge, and open, and Pip fumbles to find any words to describe it. “It's- it's vast,” Angie whispers, because she's always been better at words than he has, and she's absolutely right. It's wide and vast and full of promise and full of terror, if the pouncing  _ thing  _ that's just tackled a small creature is any indication. Winding green and brown have overtaken everything on the surface as far as the eye can see, and a thick cover of grey hangs above it all.

   Angie is clinging to his hand, excited and overwhelmed and quickly going from thrilled surprise to realizing anger. “They hid this. They  _ are _ hiding this. Philip, we're sixteen, and there's been a window to the outside world all along, and we're only seeing it  _ now _ ? What the fuck is this place? Why is it sealed off? Because it changes things,” she answers herself, pulling away and pacing.

    “How so?” Pip asks, knowing that it's easier to just let her roll her thoughts out at once instead of picking pieces to focus on.

    “Purple had access to the outside, and medicine. Meaning Purple, somewhere along the line, had power,” she rattles off. “But at this point, said access has been sealed off and the medicine destroyed, and the Upper levels all have power. Which, logic would indicate, means that the reason that our friends and family are starving and dying young and bedridden is simply because somebody got it in their heads that they wanted more power, and took it from the most convenient source.”

    She stops and leans against the wall, running a hand over her face. He opens his mouth to reassure her, but stops, because that would be lying. “Yeah. Yeah, they did.”

    Angie whirls to face him. “What? You knew?”

    Shit.

    “I wanted to wait to tell you until we had the chance to talk a couple of things over,” Pip cuts in, before she can steamroll into a rant at him. “I didn't expect to find what we did.”

    His sister glowers. “Don't fucking try to protect me, Philip Buck Hamilton.”

    He spreads his hands out beseechingly. “What was I supposed to do, tell a fifteen-year-old about something I'm barely allowed to be involved in? You're almost a year younger than me, Angie. If I'm not allowed to be in that deep, they're not going to let you be.”

    Angie closes her eyes, exhales slowly, looks back at him. “Tell me everything. As much as you can, at least.”

    Pip hesitates, then shakes his head. “No. We found this, and I don't think anyone else knows about the window. If we weren't going to be involved before, we sure as hell will be now.”

    She grins.

**Author's Note:**

> AH IM SORRY ITS BEEN SO LONG BUT HERE


End file.
